Ice Ice Beta

The Power of Long-Term Projects with Phil Wortmann

Episode Summary

Phil Wortmann doesn’t look at outrageous projects like most people. Rather, it’s a puzzle to be solved and the pieces might just require a whole new set of skills and close to a decade to put it all together.

Episode Notes

Phil Wortmann doesn’t look at outrageous projects like most people. It can’t be that he took too many hits to the head, because he stopped boxing early, and it’s not la la optimism either.

Still, for someone to make a 5.13 project on Pike’s Peak their first at the grade and to establish what is likely the Lower 48's hardest, longest and most sustained mixed climb requires a little something something. That something something is something Phil thinks others can develop too, by the way.

In this episode, we chat about:

• 🧊 The importance of long-term goals and how he approaches them
• 🧊 What went into projecting “Samsara” and “Drop the Mic”
• 🧊 Establishing The Ghetto, the hardest drytooling crag in Colorado outside of Ouray and Vail
• 🧊 Helping to preserve The Golden Book and Colorado Springs climbing history
• 🧊 Why gatekeeping grinds his gears

🧊 Resources and links:

To follow Phil’s latest exploits, he’s on Instagram @thewordmann.

Here is his account of projecting “Samsara” and here is the AAJ article about “Drop the Mic.”

📸: Cover photo by Scott Turpin.